Frankly, The Gurometer and The End Times
"Greed is an addiction. It's a machine that must constantly be fed." — DJ MacHale
We laid the tracks for the machine, superorganism, modern civilization, call it what you will, a bullet train with its super energy system that has evolved with technology for thousands of years. The tracks lead to a Himalayan-sized granite wall, and the train's speed increases at a higher rate year on year. The kinetic energy released when the train hits the wall will produce an unprecedented extinction event. Maybe via nuclear war, pandemics, or rapid climate change, or perhaps, the elites will find it necessary to "mow the grass" using the tools of science, engineering, and technology.
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Global neoliberal fossil capitalism is busy testing autonomous robot weapons systems on battlefields. It neglects careful diplomacy and has a morbid penchant for game-theoretic rivalries dependent on financialized transactions that primarily benefit large investors.
The propaganda machine tells us who to fear when we really should fear the owners of the propaganda machine.
Frankly, I don't see any way we will avoid a rapid reduction in Homo Sapiens population as this century continues. Nate Hagens has some ideas about how we might mitigate the severity of the anthropogenic population crash and the sixth extinction.
Nate Hagens produces "The Great Simplification" podcast. Here is a description of his work from his website.
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens is a podcast that explores the systems science underpinning the human predicament. Conversation topics will span human behavior, monetary/economic systems, energy, ecology, geopolitics, and the environment. The show aims to inform more humans about the path ahead and inspire people to play a role in our collective future. Guests will be from a wide range of scientists, leaders, activists, thinkers, and doers.
We have spent the last century harnessing enormous amounts of fossil energy to build a world of complexity like nothing seen before. In the coming century, humanity will experience A Great Simplification, beginning with the onset of financial and economic turbulence, followed by contraction. The ensuing simplification will be among the most significant events ever experienced by our species.
Those who look through a systems lens can serve as early visionaries of a simpler life with new ways of relating to technology, consumption, each other, and Earth's ecosystems.
Our system and its components, processes, and interactions are incredibly complex. On this podcast, we will try to 'simplify' the 'great' issues of our time to expand the number of people making sense of our reality.
Nate is honest, gentle, earnest, and straightforward. I appreciate his work and am learning a lot from his thoughtful guest experts.
He has a series he calls "Frankly," where he shares his ideas, thoughts, and feelings regarding his work. On Frankly #55, he talks about seven critical interventions for the future. They are all solid tasks that would help us improve our situation immensely if implemented by enough people worldwide. Please take a moment and listen to his thoughts.
If only enough people would implement these approaches.
In my opinion, Nate is one of the good guys. He's not so full of himself; he's an educator.
Currently, there are plenty of intellectual influencers with great ideas on the internet. Some are annoying, egotistical narcissists with savior complexes. Decoding The Gurus podcast takes these types to task in an entertaining, if not, at times, somewhat obnoxious way.
Below is a description of The Gurometer from the Decoding The Gurus website:
The Gurometer comprises ten key characteristics of "guruosity," which the decoders will use to score the Gurus in future episodes.]
Galaxy-brainness
Cultishness
Anti-establishment(arianism)
Grievance-mongering
Self-aggrandisement and narcissism
Cassandra complex
Revolutionary theories
Pseudo-profound bullshit
Conspiracy mongering
Profiteering
If you are familiar with Bret and Jordon, what do you think about their "Gurometer" rating after viewing that episode?
In my ever so humble opinion, Christopher and Matthew are at their best when discussing Bret Weinstein and Jordon Peterson. Few online WEIRD geniuses have escaped their witty and sharp-witted criticisms.
I'm a bog-standard citizen interested in learning how things work—nowhere near Guru status, and as I said, Nate is an educator. He studies across domains so he can educate, hoping to empower us so that we can be part of solutions and not problems.
I hope you follow The Great Simplification podcast.
As you know, I'm a reader and have a book recommendations page on my website. I read these books over the last ten years, many during the pandemic. I also read a lot of articles and papers. I'm insatiably curious and obsessed with what makes people the way they are and civilizational collapse. These obsessions drew me to the online collective known as Sense Makers. Sensemakers include people like Jim Rutt, Daniel Schmachtenberger, Jamie wheel, Eric Weinstein, David Fuller, Alexander Beiner, Nora Bateson, among many others. Over the years, various cliques of intellectual influencers have had many monikers. "The Four Horsemen” and “intellectual dark web” are some other examples.
The Perils of Audience Capture
Audience capture is the bane of any decent intellectual influencer or online expert. Many decent minds have acquired Gurometer traits as their fame and fortune grew. It's a hazard of the trade.
Audience capture is a self-reinforcing feedback loop that involves telling one's audience what they want to hear and getting rewarded for it.
I sincerely hope that Nate and his friends can stay focused on the many good reasons they do their work and not get distracted by the attention they are getting. Their project is a very complex and difficult one. Sadly, I don't think it will meet with much success. The bullet train has a mind of its own that emerged from our nature and seems destined to self-destruct.
Here's why:
Homo sapiens living in large communities are venal, status-seeking animals concerned with social dominance hierarchies.
Much has been written over the millennia; open any Holy book or a good book and think about all those authors and storytellers. Try to imagine the times they live in and the challenges they have faced. Think of all the violence, pain, suffering, and death they've described. Think of all the species and ecosystems that homo sapiens have impacted throughout our existence. Think of the impact we have on each other. Think of the seven deadly sins we can't seem to overcome despite sages, prophets, priests, priestesses, teachers, wise men and women, shamans, poets, playwrights, etc.
And what about leadership? Our leaders are motivated by greed, status, and pecking orders.
Of course, it's not all bad; one can feel love and perceive beauty, joy, flow, connection, harmony, peace, and wisdom from these stories and within communities and relationships. We know beauty when we see it and need it as much as we need to breathe.
"I think of beauty as an absolute necessity. I don't think it's a privilege or an indulgence, it's not even a quest. I think it's almost like knowledge, which is to say, it's what we were born for. I think finding, incorporating and then representing beauty is what humans do. With or without authorities telling us what it is, I think it would exist in any case.
The startle and the wonder of being in this place. This overwhelming beauty—some of it is natural, some of it is man-made, some of it is casual, some of it is a mere glance—is an absolute necessity. I don't think we can do without it any more than we can do without dreams or oxygen." — Toni Morrison
We must have been doing some things right over the past four hundred years, or we wouldn't live in a world with eight billion people. Read Steven Pinker to gain perspectives on why things aren't so bad.
On academic freedom and civil discourse.
However, as I have said many times, we are all "accelerationists" now.
Accelerationism is a range of revolutionary and reactionary ideas in left-wing and right-wing ideologies that call for the drastic intensification of capitalist growth, technological change, infrastructure sabotage, and other processes of social change to destabilize existing systems and create radical social transformations, otherwise referred to as "acceleration."
We can't control the genies we've liberated or understand the techno black boxes we've invented, and we sure don't know how these things will change our environment and impact our psychology, health, and ecosystems. We are running dozens of uncontrolled experiments affecting life with little concern for future generations.
Nate mentioned "The Fifteen Hundred," an allusion to the elite that "run" the world and how we must help them understand where we are headed.
Inequality is the difference in social status, wealth, or opportunity between people or groups. People are concerned about corruption and social inequality.
We hope that if the rich and powerful embrace a more sustainable and gentler culture, invest in it, and provide leadership, it will help us solve some of the problems Nate and his guests are concerned with. But what do you give a man who has everything? More control, and they'll never have enough. They are not wise men; they are rich men, and their wealth is all about having more control over more resources that will make them more money. Status, power, and the pecking order are what concern them. It's a feedback loop, an ouroboros.
To the degree that peasants are necessary to sustain the Empire, they will be afforded certain protections. However, this isn't out of altruism; it's to maintain the elite's power and control.
All the data and information training AIs and LLMs is an ouroboros feeding on itself—what comes of it is more of it. Investing in these things exists to get a return on investment and create more control mechanisms.
The Ouroboros Of Machine Learning
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Our culture creates people with addictions, and the powerful feed our addictions to maintain control.
Powerful technology emerged from fossil capitalism, and ordinary people do not control it; we have the illusion of control. We feed the beast.
People in less wealthy communities are helpful and compassionate because they experience the difficulty, pain, love, and beauty of abject survival. They need each other because they are in a more precarious position than wealthier people. Their community has value. None of this is to say that poverty doesn't lead to stressful circumstances that can cause many pathological behaviors, violence, crime, and disease—poverty is a terrible thing, and we must eliminate it.
Wealthy people can buy or rent whatever they want or need and just as quickly dispose of them. Think of private equity, flash trading, and colonial exploitation of other people's resources. The pinnacle of control is to be a rentier. Own everything and rent things to the plebs and proles, so they are absolutely dependent on you. Code capital so you can do this legally and convince everyone it's in their best interest. Create scarcity and war to increase capital on capital returns while exploiting people's fears.
Think about what your leaders do. Who do they work for? What do they want?
As people get wealthier in a material sense, the deadly sins become more pernicious. Call it "The Lucifer Principle," if you will.
Unfortunately, even as I listen to good people working hard on solutions, I don't see a way out of our predicament. Every year, we invent more ways to accelerate the bullet train—the inner self-destructive urge.
Knowing this doesn't depress me. I see people doing their work and living their lives. Whatever circumstances one finds oneself in, it's a miracle we are here, and we are only here for a short while. Life will continue on Earth until it ends.
Nate experienced a profound sense of community in India. I lived in Colaba near the military security gate in Mumbai for a year. I have lived and worked in seven countries and grew up in two. I have never been banged up abroad. Am I simply lucky? I love and respect all cultures. I can't help it. Call it a weakness or label me a cosmopolitan. I love world history and the varieties of social and cultural expression. Anthropology, psychology, and sociology are all interests of mine.
Some people believe their sect has all the correct, God-given answers. I think we come up with answers that make sense and fit our circumstances.
All Holy books are eschatological and apocalyptic, except belief systems in cultures that didn't have to be too concerned with scarcity. Myths postulate what might exist in a higher realm where the challenges of physical existence are transcended. You have Samsara or an apocalypse, the judgment day, or you finally transcend the cycle of birth and death. Or, maybe you are the son of Zeus, one of many Gods, or The Son of the One God. Or, if you live in places like the Amazon, where scarcity and the need to defend precious resources are less intensely felt, you feel part and parcel of all life and a kinship with Mother Earth. You have an animistic sense that the world has a soul.
Our civilization commodifies everything; it's relatively soulless. Many people hunger for a deeper connection with things in the world, life, and each other. People think of creating new religions, but we already have many religious traditions. We need new structures, new philosophies of economics, greater respect for our limitations, and patience—we need time for inner growth.
What experiences will transform us when we all aspire to have more, consume more, and covet a mastery of the tools that feed our will to power and longing to win battles within The Great Game to gain great fame?
When this civilization ends, and the scale of our communities is greatly diminished, we may return to a gentler, pantheistic time where all is sacred. We may once again live in harmony with nature and our nature. We may become the protectors and not the destroyers of life.
We may have never lived in peace; perhaps our destiny is the violent end of our species—no more birth and death.
Some say the Universe is conscious. Some think we live in a computer simulation. Many believe all would be well if we had the same religion or ideology.
Let it be.
If you take it all in, you must take in the good and the bad. Is that being realistic or pessimistic? Think about all we have produced since fossil capitalism fully blossomed in the mid-nineteenth century and became unregulated under neoliberalism in the late twentieth century. Are these ideologies and things good for us, life on Earth, and the general health of our planet's ecosystems?
For many of us, a good and healthy life would be much simpler, with better relationships and less stuff. If the train wreck doesn't kill us, it may make us wiser. One thing is certain: some of us will find out soon enough.
